Motor Mouth: Alfa Romeo 4C takes me back to my youth

1987 Alfa Romeo 164.

Handout

1987 Alfa Romeo 164.

Handout

By David Booth, Postmedia News

Originally published: September 23, 2013

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Sages keep telling us we can never go home again, the implication always being that the joyous naïveté of youth, that glorious lack of sophistication that made our younger selves so eagerly anticipate life’s every "first," is somehow consigned to the distant past, lost forever to adulthood’s cynicism and delusion. Inevitably, the adage insinuates, ideology becomes pragmatism, anticipation apathy and grown-up world-weariness replaces the earnest expectancy of youth. Indeed, though I still pinch myself every morning (and, Lord knows, I should) when I wake to my supposed “work,” I have to admit a certain ho-humness has crept into my psyche, as even the McLaren MP4-12C I am supposed to test next week (and the “naked” BMW S1000R superbike I will flog in a couple of months) seem like just another day in the office.

Yet, here I sit, in an Italy-bound Air Canada 777, sleepless with the giddiness of an eight-year-old anticipating his first puppy or — more appropriate to this story, at least — a then-28-year-old budding autoscribe on his way to his very first automotive press event. I am winging my way to Milan to test a car and, while that in itself may not be milestone-worthy, the fact is, I am on my way to test Alfa Romeo’s phantasmagorical new 4C. This is the very first Alfa to come to Canada since, well, the 1987 164, which, I am assuming you have guessed by now, was the object of my very first automotive junket back when the world was young and I had hair.

And what a spree it was, no corporate entity in the whole wide world being able to turn a mere product introduction into such a jubilant celebration of life as an Italian car company yet to suffer Berlusconi and economic depression. Fiat had just bought Alfa and was definitely putting on the dog. We were housed at the impossibly hedonistic Principe di Savoia Hotel, all marble decor and bathrooms the size of apartments. We ate like kings, partied like rock stars and I got my first taste of mixing with celebrity — it may have only been Brigitte Nielsen, but, and feminists will please forgive the vulgarity of youth, she was in that sweet spot post Sylvester Stallone but pre Flavor Flav. And, oh yes, the car was simply magical.

Not many will remember the 164. Few were sold in Canada and even fewer survived the rust that plagued any Italian car that saw salt, snow or even the slight mist that occasionally creeps into our fall mornings. But the 164 was a joint effort between Saab, Lancia and Fiat, the basic platform so well-engineered that I still contend the Saab version — the 9000 — was the best car sold (in any numbers) in the 1980s.

Alfa’s version wasn’t quite as practical as the Saab — it was a conventional sedan while the 9000 was, at least in its most popular form, a beyond-roomy five-door hatchback — nor quite as beautiful as an Italian car should be — this being the 1980s, the Italians looked to be emulating Germanic style when they should have been copying their engineering. But, oh my, what a drive it was.

The 164 was powered by what we in North America then considered two of the most pedestrian types of engines one could put in an automobile (remember, this was the ’80s, when V8s still ruled and four-cylinders were for those expecting to lose their jobs); a pitifully small 2.0-litre four and an equally innocuous V6. In hindsight, it was no doubt the shock of finding out that one could — if one was Italian, of course — render the mundane absolutely magnificent if one just applied enough con brio. I don’t know, for instance, if it was Alfa’s addition of a second spark plug to each of the four-banger’s cylinders that livened it up, but that little Twin Spark four rushed everywhere like it was auditioning for the Targa Florio.

And the 3.0L V6 was simply spectacular, its Ferrari Dino-like soundtrack remaining unmatched for more than two decades until Jaguar’s recent F-Type proved once again that six pistons arranged in a vee don’t have to sound like a washing machine with a thrown bearing. Every high-rpm shift was an automotive symphony, every downshift backfire the cackle of a mad thing surely to lead you to bad places.

Except, the constabulary was in on the deal. Fiat — and this may be the part of rank sentimentality that exaggerates the adventures of youth — hired the local policia as facilitators and what they seemed most eager to facilitate was having us driving as fast as that little Twin Spark and glorious 3.0L would go. Funny outsized hats notwithstanding, the sight of a uniformed cop, standing beside a fully bubbled-out patrol car, waving his arms exhorting you to go faster is still a memory not likely repeated.

Indeed, I suspect that, even the Italians, now rendered somewhat sensible by economic turmoil and European Union dictum, will have us testing the new 4C on some closed race track, far away from any public road and — this too may be just be sentimental remembrances — local villagers bidding us to speed through their villages with more élan. Nonetheless, the 4C promises to be everything that is good about Italian motorcars — innovative (a low-cost carbon-fibre tub, for instance), speedy (its 4.5-second time to 100 kilometres an hour time completely whitewashes its Porsche Cayman competition) and achingly beautiful.

Perhaps that will be sufficient for me to catch a glimpse of my youth. Maybe even go home again.